The Marauder's Map
by Simxp
Summary: Remember in the third year when the Marauder's map insults Snape? Ever since then, Harry has been thinking about what it means for him. Does it mean that the Marauder's personalities are embedded in the map? And could he bring back his Dad? [SUSPENDED
1.

Harry Potter was lying on his bed in his dormitory at Hogwarts, studying the Marauder's map.  It was the beginning of his fifth year at school, but he was not contemplating new ways to cause trouble with it, as might originally have been the appropriate use for such a map at the dawn of a new term. No, Harry was mulling over how he came to have possession of such an extraordinary object.  Given to him by Fred and George to help him go to Hogsmeade, confiscated and then returned by Professor Lupin – who he still couldn't get into the habit of calling 'Remus' – and then taken away again by the imposter Moody.  He had found it on his bed upon returning to Hogwarts this year, and strongly suspected that Dumbledore had put it there.  Again, his eyes flickered to the writing at the head of the parchment:

_Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs  
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers  
are proud to present THE MARAUDER'S MAP_

He had recognised the handwriting after a while: it was nearly the same as that which had marked his Defence Against the Dark Arts homework the year before last, except perhaps a little less orderly and more cluttered.  It stayed static, almost defying him.  There was no sign that it was anything except an inanimate object; a clever bit of magic, but nothing more.

And yet those words, which had sprung out of the map in his third year, kept coming back to him.

_"Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep  
his abnormally large nose out of other people's business."_

_"Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony and would like to add that Professor  
Snape is an ugly git."_

_"Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever  
became a professor."_

_"Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his  
hair , the slimeball."_

Those words were the only sign he had ever had that this ragged piece of parchment was something more than just a map.  Once again, he dwelled on the first and last comments.  Had the map merely sensed Snape's physical characteristics?  That would explain Moony and Wormtail's remarks, but what about Sirius's?  _"Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor."_  Was that merely a random insult, perhaps based on Snape's use of the word 'professor'?  If not – and Harry hoped it was not – then did that mean, _could_ that mean, that the Marauder's memories, their personalities, were locked up in the map, somehow?

How else could Fred and George have learned the password?  Harry seriously doubted that they had randomly hit on the right phrase whilst tapping the map with a wand, especially when to them it must have seemed like a blank bit of parchment.  They must have talked to the Marauders, as Snape had, and then were judged worthy of being given the password.  But who had judged them worthy?  One of the four must have made the decision somewhere – it was too much that there would merely be an automatic mechanism to do so built in.  Again, all the signs seemed to point to them having some aspect of their personalities locked up in the map.

Harry, though, was still hesitant.  He had only ever had one experience with someone locking their personalities and memories inside parchment – Riddle's diary.  And he was not sure whether to be discouraged or motivated by his experience with _that_.  On one hand, Harry could feel an enormous sense of anticipation: Riddle had escaped from his diary, becoming a material being, an exact copy of the person who had written it.

On the other hand, to be born out of the diary, to become living, and breathing, had needed someone else to die.  He had needed to use someone else's life energy in lieu of his own.

As much as Harry wanted to see his father again, he would not kill someone to do it.

He read through the headings again.  He decided it was worth asking.  After all, what harm could asking do?

It was the middle of the night.  He did not want anyone to wake up; he did not at the moment want to share this with anyone.  Would writing work? He muttered a quick "Mischief Managed," erasing the map to reveal the original blank sheet of parchment, and retrieved a quill and a bottle of ink from his bedside table.  Dipping the former into the latter, he spent a few seconds pondering what he would say, eventually deciding that a mere 'Hello' could not be beaten for its simplicity.  He paused over the parchment, and wrote it quickly.

A moment later, writing appeared underneath.

_"Mr. Moony welcomes you to the wonder of Mischief-making, Misbehaviour, and Monkey business that is the Marauder's Map, and wonders how he, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs may be able to assist you?  "_

Harry felt slightly dizzy.  He took a few deep breaths, and dipping his quill in the ink bottle frantically – nearly knocking it over – he wrote back.

"Hi.  My name is Harry Potter."

_"Any relation to Prongs?"_

The younger Professor Lupin's handwriting appeared quickly below his own.

"Yes.  I'm his son."

There was a pause of a few seconds before any more writing appeared, but to Harry, it felt like an age.  Finally, in handwriting that was almost an image of his own, appeared:

_"You are my son?  Then who the hell is your mother?"_

Harry, however, didn't have the chance to reply before more writing appeared.

_"Mr. Moony would like to remind Mr. Prongs to tone down his language, and—"_

He did not get to finish his rebuke, however, as handwriting that reminded Harry of Sirius's letters appeared very messily and at a slant, as though he had snatched the quill and was trying to finish before it was taken back:

_"Who would possibly want to marry HIM?"_

The parchment finally stopped writing.  Harry stared at it, dumbfounded, for at least ten seconds, until, in Sirius's handwriting, the word _"Well?" _appeared below his previous remarks.  Harry quickly pulled himself together, and wrote, "Lily" next to it.

There was a pause, and suddenly, the top half of the writing disappeared, as though wiped from a chalkboard.  In his father's handwriting, somewhat messier than before, appeared:

_"Lily?  Lily Evans?  Really?"_

And in small letters and the bottom right, in Sirius's handwriting appeared, simply:

_"Oh No."_

Harry ignored him, in favour of his father.  "I didn't know her maiden name was Evans.  The only thing I know about her is that she's got green eyes." This seemed slightly inadequate, but Harry didn't care, waiting quickly for the answer.  It appeared quickly:

_"YES!  I knew it!  Didn't I tell you, Padfoot?  Did I not say—"_

The writing stopped suddenly, and there was a hiatus of a few seconds where nothing materialized – but then, in much smaller letters, came Moony's handwriting.  It sent a small frisson down his spine.

_"If she is your mother, why do you not know her maiden name?"_

Harry froze. He wondered how he could possibly explain.  Nothing else appeared on the parchment, as if they were waiting with baited breath for his answer, and finally, he decided that he would have to tell the truth.  To do any less would be an insult to them.

"She's dead".

There was a long pause.  At last, his Dad's handwriting appeared, though it was unsteady.

_"How?"_

"Voldemort."

The map lay for about a minute, silent.  Abruptly, unfamiliar handwriting appeared.  It was narrow and spiky, with a left slant.  Harry realised that this must be Wormtail's scrawl.

_"What about the rest of us?"_

Harry felt slightly sick.  Why did he have to do this?  How could he possibly explain?  He lay down on his bed, going over his options.  No more writing appeared.  At length, Harry realised that he had to answer, and he had to tell the truth.

"My Dad is dead, he died to defend my and my Mum from Voldemort.  Remus and Sirius are still alive."

It was not the whole truth, but it was not a lie either.  He hoped and prayed that no-one would ask about Wormtail; he did not think he could bear to describe what had happened to him.  The next writing to appear, however, was his father's.

_"How did you survive?"_

At least this was something he could answer.

"My Mum died to save me.  Voldemort could not kill me."

No-one said anything.  Harry guessed what they were going through: it would be the same as when he found out that he was a wizard in that hut, five years ago; the need to assimilate the information that his whole life had been re-written (or in their case, merely lived out), and come to terms with it.  Only for them it would be worse.  How could someone deal with the knowledge that they would die, and there was nothing they could do about it?  But with an abrupt jolt, he remembered why he had done this, and realised that, if he did not act soon, questions would be asked that he could not answer, not with Sirius and Wormtail listening.  If he was going to try to resurrect his father, he needed to do it soon.

"Dad, is there any way I can talk to you face-to-face?," he wrote.

There was still silence from the parchment, but the atmosphere of the silence had subtly changed, from that of shock to that of surprise – and anticipation.  To his surprise, it was Remus whose writing appeared next.

_"Yes, there is.  When we made the map, we each put a fourth of our magical power into the map; not enough to seriously hinder us, but enough to create one of us from the map, from the four quarters.  The map would then be rendered useless (it only worked by having our combined magical power in it), and the rest of our personalities and memories would be lost.  But this is just the situation that would make that worthwhile.  If the rest of us are still alive and Prongs is dead, then you, as his son, need him."_

At first, Harry felt elation.  He would see his Dad again!  He lifted his quill to agree – but then what he had read sunk in.

By bringing his Father back, he would be condemning the others in the map to oblivion.  He would be asking them to kill themselves.  And instead of the agreement he was going to write, he found himself writing:

"But I cannot ask you to do that.  The rest of you would die."

Sirius's handwriting materialised.

_"The rest of us would not die, Harry.  We are still alive in out real bodies.  Prongs, however, is dead.  By doing this, we would be creating a life, without killing anyone."_

And much as it pained him to condemn three conscious personalities to oblivion, Harry had to agree.

But he was not going to let Sirius know that.

"Is there no other way?"

_"No, except by taking the life-energy from a living person.  And that would kill them."_

"But if a couple of friends and I each contribute a third, then would that not do it?"

There was a pause, and Remus's handwriting appeared again.

_"It would.  But we can't ask you to do that when we have already done it.  We contributed it knowing that this could someday happen.  To take more life energy would be not only pointless, but senseless.  Please let us do this."_

Harry stared, not knowing what to say.  Could he?  Should he?  Was it even his decision to make?  More writing appeared, back in Sirius's handwriting.

_"For Prongs."_

Harry paused for a fraction of a second and then wrote two letters.

"OK".


	2. 

Harry had not even finished the second letter when the map begun to shake violently.  He sprang back, watching it in a mixture of trepidation and excitement.  The trembles came faster, until it was vibrating too fast for his eye to follow.  All that could be seen now was a strange, supernatural blue glow, which got brighter and brighter until the entire fluorescent sphere (for that was what it was now) rose up about a foot off his bed, and expanded to take on the outline of a human body.  With a sudden blinding flash, the glow disappeared, leaving a very surprised-looking boy in its wake.  As if on an afterthought, an old piece of parchment materialised between the two teenagers, and floated down, a relic of what the marauders once were.

The entire sequence of events had taken place in complete silence.

The newly-appeared boy was staring down at himself, as if he had not been in his own body for many years.  Harry could only stare in wonder.  It was like looking into a mirror – except without the lightning-bolt scar, and with eyes, which were not the bright, piercing green of his own, but a soft, hazel brown.

They just stared at each other for what seemed like hours, until being disturbed by Ron, shifting position in the bed opposite.

This seemed to shake the hazel-eyed boy out of a reverie.  He shook his head as though to clear it, and hesitantly spoke.

"Uh... could you get me some clothes?"

Harry was startled, but suddenly realised that his father wasn't wearing anything, not even any glasses.  He shook himself, and reaching below his bed, grabbed a pair of pants, some blue jeans, and a T-shirt.  Tossing them at the other boy, he whispered,

"We can't talk here, we'll wake them.  Come down to the common room when you've got dressed."

The recipient of all this, however, was not moving.  He was still gazing around the room, squinting in wonder and amazement.

Harry took off his glasses, and gave them to him.  Putting them on, the other boy's eyes widened, and he continued gazing.

Harry could not stand it any more.  "Meet me in the common room," he hissed, and jumped up, going as fast as he could without making any noise down the stairs and into the common room.  He collapsed on a chair near the fire, which was dying out; only a few embers were left.

Staring at them, he began to grasp what had just happened.

He had brought his Father back.

His Father.

James.

Prongs.

Dad.

Alive, sitting, getting dressed quietly in Harry's bed, shaken but unharmed, and alive.

He sat, turning this thought over in his mind for a few moments, until a voice from behind him disturbed his thoughts.

"At least the clothes fit alright."

Harry swung around, to see his Father, dressed in some old jeans and a T-shirt, standing behind him, smiling slightly.  He rushed forward, and stopped in front of him.

"Dad..."

The hazel-eyed boy started grinning.  "It feels so weird, you calling me 'Dad'.  I mean, you're pretty much the same age as me, give or take a few months.  And you're certainly just as short as me."

Harry grinned too.  It was impossible not too, when faced with such a happy face.  And suddenly they were in each others arms, laughing and crying with equal vitality.  Harry had not been this happy since he could remember; he had _family_, family who cared, family to laugh with, family to cry with.  This was James Potter, the man who gave life to him, the man who loved him, and the man who died for him, all here in the form of a boy of his age.  For the first time in his life, he was happy – no, he was more than happy: he was content.

At last, they broke apart, high on euphoria.  "Just call me James," the other boy said, in answer to Harry's unspoken question.

"So," he went on, "I married Lily Evans, did I?  I did, I can see it in your eyes.  Literally."  He grinned, but then his smile faded, and he looked almost pensive.  How did it happen?"

This was the question that Harry had been dreading; did it have to come so soon?  But he had already known that he had to, and it was better sooner than later.  He opened his mouth.

"It's... It's a long story."

James mere waited expectantly.  "Remember, I don't know about anything that's happened since... well, nineteen years ago."

Harry took a deep breath, and started speaking.  He told James of Voldemort's gaining of power until fifteen years ago, of the fidelis charm, of Peter and Sirius,  James had gone white at this last bit, and opened his mouth several times to interrupt Harry, but Harry didn't let him; he knew that if he stopped speaking he would never be able to start again.  So he continued, telling James of living with the Dursley's, of finding out he was a wizard, of the Philosopher's stone, of the Chamber of Secrets, of Sirius's escape, and of Voldemort's return last year.  He left no detail out: he had finally found someone whom he could trust implicitly, more so than even Ron or Hermione, and he had known _them_ for four years.  And he was not going to have any more secrets from his Dad.

It took much longer than he thought it would.

Throughout all this, James stood still, listening.  When Harry had finally stopped, he sat down, hard, on one of the chairs and stayed silent.  He stayed like that for a good half hour, thinking, assimilating and absorbing this untold wealth of information that had just been placed in front of him.  Harry was watching him, worried.  Was it too much for him to take in, all in one go?  James had just been told of the entire future of his past self.  A lot of things he had taken for granted in his previous life were shattered myths here.  Harry tried to put himself in his Father's position.  Four friends, together, creating a map for mischief-making, and the next moment, stuck outside his time, everyone that he had known now changed; one of his best friends having been entombed in Azkaban for eleven years, another having betrayed the rest of them.  Himself and his future wife dead.  How could it be possible to digest so much information at once without having a nervous breakdown?  Harry started to seriously worry.  Beads of sweat were appearing on James' forehead.  But he stayed quiet, watching and waiting, afraid of disturbing his Dad, afraid of stopping the learning process now.

But soon he had no choice.  The first beads of light were appearing from one of the high windows.  Harry glanced at the ancient, wooden clock suspended above the fireplace; it was nearly five o'clock.  A wave of fear swept over him; what was he going to do when the rest of his house came downstairs in an hour or two?  How was he going to explain it?  And even if the students didn't recognise him, surely the teachers would.  What was he going to do?

Even as he thought those words, though, he knew what the answer would be.  He would have to go to Dumbledore, and explain all.  Nothing short of the complete and absolute truth would carry any weight with the headmaster.  Hesitantly, he interrupted his Father's thoughts.

"James...?"

James looked up slowly.  He took a while to answer, but when he did, it was in a surprisingly stable voice.

"Yes?"

"We need to tell Dumbledore.  I can't keep you hidden."

James' reply was said in a tone a graceful acceptance.  "Yes."  He paused for a few seconds, then continued.  "I'd better get the invisibility cloak, in case Filch is up.  Assuming Filch is still caretaker...?"

"He is, yes," Harry responded, "But I'll get the cloak in case Ron or Neville are up."

As quietly as he could, he stole up the stairs and into the dorm, grabbed the cloak, and crept back down again, putting it over both of them.  Carefully opening the portrait hole to prevent the ever-present squeak proved to be pointless, because the Fat Lady gave one on behalf of it.  "Who's there?"  Her voice followed them as they crept down the hallway and up the stairs to the next floor.  They were silent as they crept along the dusty hallways, until they reached an ugly stone gargoyle that they both knew led to Dumbledore's office.  Both whispered to the other at the same time:

"Sweets."

Harry mentally tried going through all the sweets he'd seen in Honeydukes last time he was there. "Chocolate Frogs, Sugar Quills, Fizzing Whizbees, Pepper Imps, Cockroach Clusters, Acid Pops, Jelly Slugs, Liquorice Wands, Fudge Flies..."  He was trying to think of some more when James interrupted:

"It's not always a wizarding sweet.  Try Sherbet Lemon."

To Harry's surprise, the gargoyle started opening.  "He used that one in my first year.  Isn't it a bit insecure to use the same one twice?"

James grinned.  "If he wanted to keep his office secure he wouldn't keep using sweets.  He used that password at least twice a year when I was here."  Harry returned the grin, but paused half way up the staircase.

"You'd better stay here whilst I explain – I've got a suspicion that he can see through invisibility cloaks, and you don't want to give him a heart attack – do you?

James snorted, but nodded his head to agree, and sat down on the stairs to wait whilst Harry, with due trepidation, ascended the stairs and knocked on the door.


	3. 

"Come in."  Dumbledore's voice rebounded round the small, stone staircase.  Double-checking that James wouldn't be visible through the open door, Harry pushed on the griffin-shaped handle and entered the circular room.  Dumbledore was sat at his desk in the middle, holding one of the delicate silver instruments that had been there in Harry's second year.  But he gazed up at Harry with a look that made him feel as if the headmaster would like nothing better than to sit there all day and listen to what he had to say.

Harry hesitated.  What _was_ he going to say?  He decided to start from what Dumbledore could relate to from the Chamber of Secrets.  It may not have been a particularly fitting analogy, but it was the best he had.

"Professor, do you remember back in my second year, with the diary – I mean, Riddle's diary – I mean..." He was stumbling.  He pulled himself together, and went on, "How he managed to lock his thoughts, and memories, and personality into the parchment.  How he could escape from it and come back into his body."

He paused.  The subject was broached, but was it safe to just come out and say that his father did the same thing?

Dumbledore sensed his pause, and looked quizzically up at Harry, a look of slight worry on his ancient face.  His bright blue eyes drilled into Harry's bright green ones, making Harry feel as if he could see right through him.  "Has someone else done the same thing?"

This gave Harry the impetus to continue.  "Yes, professor.  I...  When my Father, Sirius, Professor Lupin and Wormtail were at school, they made a map of Hogwarts."

There was a crash.  Dumbledore had dropped the silver instrument he was holding, and it lay shattered on his desk.  And though his expression did not change, he was looking at Harry with a new intensity in his eyes.  "You brought back your Father?," He questioned, his voice tense.

"Yes."  Harry nearly felt relief that Dumbledore had worked it out, but that was crushed by the look on the latter's face.

"Where did the animanavitas needed come from?"  He spoke urgently.

"The what?"  Harry was puzzled for a moment.

"The animanavitas – the magical energy that gives wizards their power," Dumbledore said impatiently.  Harry was taken aback, Dumbledore was never impatient.  "You mentioned Riddle's diary, his came from Ginny Weasley.  Where did James's come from?"

Harry almost sighed with relief; this was exactly the discussion he had had with Sirius in the map.  "They each put a quarter of theirs into the map.  There was enough to create a new person."  He had the strange feeling that he was not doing the explanation justice; Sirius had been able to explain it much more clearly.  Dumbledore, however, seemed to have understood.  A look of relief flickered across his face, but it was overshadowed by the sheer intensity of the way he was looking at Harry now.

"Did it work?"

He was answered by a creak at the door.  As it opened, James stepped into the room.

Dumbledore stood up abruptly.  His face had gone a shade whiter, and when he spoke, it was a whisper.

"James..."

James looked up at him.  "Yes, sir?"

Harry was suddenly struck with the strangeness of the situation.  Dumbledore had not seen James for fourteen years, and knew him as a twenty year old man who had died protecting his family.  James, on the other hand, having had his memories resurrected as a copy of what they last were nineteen years ago, would have last seen Dumbledore only a few days ago, from his perspective.  How bizarre must it be from his point of view?  Dumbledore must have realised this too from James' last reply, for he pulled himself together, resuming his normal composure as if nothing had happened.  His eyes, however, betrayed him, glistening with a strange combination of joy and sadness.

He started pacing the room, thinking hard.  "We should tell Sirius and Remus immediately.  It will take a day or two to reach Sirius, he is hiding up North again."  He stopped suddenly, a look of alarm on his face, and glanced at Harry.  "Have you..."

"I told him everything," Harry replied.

 Dumbledore nodded, and continued pacing, but not before glancing at James to see his reaction.  "Remus, however, we can bring immediately; he arrived late last night."

Harry remembered the welcoming feast, there was no teacher sitting in the DADA seat.  "Is he teaching Defence again this year, then?"

Dumbledore nodded, but James had glanced up at these words, and a grin started spreading over his face.  "Moony?  Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher?"  He chuckled.  "I should have known..." He trailed off.

Harry motioned towards the invisibility cloak.  "You'd better put that on, or he'll have a heart attack when he sees you."  James began looking for a chair in the corner to sit on whilst Harry was talking to Remus.  Being a circular room, this was rather a problem, so he settled for one quite far away from the fireplace, where Remus would come out, but positioned so that he could see what was happening. James threw the cloak over himself, and settled down to watch.

Dumbledore took a pinch of floo powder from an ornate jar over the fireplace threw it into the flames, and declared, "Remus Lupin".  There was a pause, and with a pop, Remus's head appeared in the centre of the flames.  Dumbledore regarded him gravely.  "Could you come into my office for a moment, please, Remus."

The defence professor nodded, and climbed up out of the fireplace.  Brushing himself off, he looked around, and alighted on Harry.  "Nice to see you again, Harry," he exclaimed.  He glanced at Dumbledore, then back to him.  Harry had an expression of great trepidation.  "What's wrong," he queried, looking worriedly between them.  

Harry glanced at Dumbledore for support, who merely nodded.

"Go on."

He gulped, and sat for a moment.  He couldn't approach from the same angle with Lupin as he had with Dumbledore.  He took a deep breath.

"Professor, you know the Marauder's Map?"

He nodded.

"Well – how did you make it?"

Remus looked surprised.  He glanced at Dumbledore, who nodded again.  "Well – first Sirius drew the layout, and I charmed all of the moving staircases and disappearing rooms to emulate those in the actual castle.  Then we all performed a charm together to show the locations of everyone in the castle.  We ran into a problem because that needed so much magic that it would only work whilst one of use was actually saying the incantation, but then Sirius discovered a spell that could let us trap some of our inherent magic into the parchment, so we each contributed a bit, and that solved that.  I then wrote out the header, because I had the neatest handwriting.  Then it worked for a while, but we kept having problems because there was nothing to control all the magical energy that we put into it, so I found a spell that would let us keep a copy of each of our personalities in it, and that worked fine.  Finally, James transfigured the ink to appear and disappear only with the passwords, and there you have it."

Harry hesitated.  "How much of your personalities are trapped in it?"

Lupin frowned.  "I used the _repono_ charm.  I wasn't sure of which part needed to be used – I seem to remember the book said something about a choice between id, ego, and a third one, superid or superego or something like that, so I just played it safe and used _repono totalus_.  I've never worked out how much of us that put in, but I don't think it was much."  He stood, thinking for a moment, then looked up at Harry worriedly: "I doubt it was enough to – to be able to communicate with your Father, Harry, if that's what you were thinking.  I never saw any evidence that all our memories and thoughts were in there, only a tiny echo of our personalities. I'm sorry."

There was a long pause, broken by Dumbledore.  "The _repono_ charm does store memories and thoughts; it is designed to keep them dormant until needed. _ Repono totalus_ causes a complete copy of that person, minus physical body and magical powers, to be transferred for storage into the vessel.  That it also allows an echo of the personality of the person stored to show through at times seems to be a side effect that you have discovered when it is used on parchment."

Remus was staring, transfixed.  "Then – then – but that means – complete copy – James – we can bring back James."  He paused, then suddenly swung round to face Harry, horrified.  "I – I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that, I wasn't thinking... It was just..."

Harry quickly interrupted.  "It's OK, professor," he said in a calm voice.

Professor Lupin shook his head, starting to regain his usual demeanour.  "No, no... I shouldn't have got your hopes up like that.  I apologise."

Harry replied, in the same, calm voice, "It's OK.  You didn't."

It took a few seconds for Remus to comprehend what Harry was saying.  When he spoke, it was a whisper. "You mean..."

"Yes," James answered.  He had pulled off the cloak, it lay on the ground beside him. 

Remus swung around to face him, in shock.  He stared.  Then suddenly he ran towards his old friend and embraced him, crying tears of joy.  Finally, they broke apart, staring at each other.  James broke the silence first.

"Well, you've grown a bit since I last saw you, Moony."

Remus Smiled.  Then grinned.  Then they both simultaneously broke into laughter, which rang throughout the circular study like heavenly church bells.


	4. 

They were interrupted by a bright flash coming from Dumbledore's desk.  Harry glanced at it from his vantage point where he was watching James and Remus's reunion, and was just in time to see a letter attached to a phoenix feather disappear into thin air.  Dumbledore looked up at them.

"I have sent a letter to Sirius requesting that he come down to Hogwarts as soon as he can.  It may take a day or two for him to come back undercover, but I attached a portable disillusionment charm, which should help..."

James, who was looking ecstatic at the possibility of seeing Sirius, interrupted.  "Can't you send a portkey?"

"I would, but the Ministry is keeping a close watch on portkeys at the moment – for exactly this reason.  I would be able to prevent them from detecting it arriving at Hogwarts, but they would sense it leaving Iceland."

"Oh, well."  James looked a little downcast.

Dumbledore smiled at him, his eyes twinkling.  "It has just turned Sunday, so he should arrive on Monday or Tuesday.  You will need to be sorted tonight – a mere formality, I can assure you.  You should stay hidden for today, but if anyone asks, you are Harry's twin brother, who was sent to America to avoid Voldemort, and is now returning.  I suggest that you use the time by going to Diagon Alley to buy your school things."  He pointed his wand at his desk, muttered something under his breath, and an envelope appeared.  Harry recognised it as a Hogwarts acceptance letter.  "And now, Remus and I must be one our way; it is nearly time for breakfast.  I daresay that you can ask Ron or Hermione to bring something up for you two.  Good luck."  And with that, he strode out of the room, closely followed by Professor Lupin.

Harry looked at James for a few moments.  "Well, I suppose we'd better get back to our dorm then."

"What? ...Oh, yeah," James replied, and threw the invisibility cloak over the two of them.

As they walked that to the Gryffindor tower, Harry was thinking.  "Do you think he's going to tell the other teachers?," he whispered.

"Yeah – the students might not recognise me, but the professors certainly will.  If I had anything to do with it."  He grinned.

"How do you think he'll tell them?"

"They'll have a staff meeting.  They always do.  I should know, they've had about five about me."

"How do you know?"

"You'll see."

"Now?"

"Yup, whilst the teachers are all at breakfast."

He led Harry into one of the bathrooms, which, luckily, was empty.  "Can I borrow your wand?  You know, just until I get my own."

"Yeah, sure," Harry replied, and handed it to him.  Taking it, James pointed it at one of the mirrors above the sinks, and muttered,

"_Wingardium Leviosa_".

A crack appeared in the centre of the mirror.  It did not move.  James looked at the wand in puzzlement.

"What a weird wand.  You'd think that it'd at least work for me.  What's it made of?"

"Holly and phoenix feather."

"Strange.  Mine was mahogany and unicorn hair."

Harry suddenly remembered that his wand was Voldemort's wand's brother.  That would be why.  He reminded James of this.

"Oh yeah."  He paused.  "Well, get one of the other mirrors down."

Harry muttered the flying charm, and gently lowered the mirror to the floor in front of them.

"Cut it in two."  A quick mutter of the severing charm, and it was done.

"Now you need to make them two-way.  The incantation is _defero inter speculum_."

Harry tried it.  Nothing happened,

"You need to think about the mirrors.  Imagine them as doorways between each other.  Imagine yourself walking into one mirror and out of the other.  Imagine them fused together as a window, then pulled apart, but still remaining as a window.  Try it again."

Concentrating on the vivid image that James had given, he tried the incantation again.  "_defero inter speculum_".

Suddenly, a ripple appeared in the middle of both mirrors.  As they spread across them, the reflection changed: the first mirror was reflecting what the second one should, and vice versa.  Harry looked up at James in surprise.

"I've never learnt a spell that quickly before, not even when Hermione was teaching it." 

"It's all a matter of having the right mental image," James answered with a grin.  "Now, shrink them both."  Harry did so, then put them in his pocket.  "Now, quickly to the staff room, before the teachers come back up for breakfast."

They raced to the staff room as quickly as they could considering that they had to remain invisible and silent, but luckily there were not many students in the corridor.  Finally, they reached the staff room. Harry put his ear to the door to see if there was anyone in there, but James pushed him aside.

"There's an easier way," he whispered.  He took a corner of the invisibility cloak, and held it so that the inside of it was up against the staff room door.  To his surprise, Harry found that he could see through the door.

"I thought you had to have the cloak on both sides of something to make it invisible."

James grinned.  "Then how do your feet remain invisible to someone close to you when you're wearing it?  You don't have the cloak below your feet.  At least, I hope you don't."  He peered into the triangular 'hole' that the invisibility cloak had made in the door.  "There's no-one in there.  Come on."  He pushed open the door, and went inside, glancing at the clock over the mantelpiece.  "We've got half an hour."  Harry handed him one of the mirrors.

"Oh – I nearly forgot.  Cut a corner off the invisibility cloak.  Just a tiny bit."  Harry did so, though he couldn't see why.  "Now enlarge it so it's big enough to cover the mirror.  And shrink the mirror a bit more.  Make it thinner."  He waited for Harry to finish, then took both of them and, pushing one of the portraits to one side, put the mirror on the wall, and the piece of invisibility cloak on that, facing outwards, in the same way as he had with the door.  Catching on, Harry did a sticking charm on both of them, and James let the portrait slide back into place.  "Let's see if it worked, then."

Harry got out the other piece of mirror, and muttered an engorgement charm, so they could see it better.  It was perfect, showing nearly the whole of the staffroom as if it had been a hidden camera.  Which, Harry reflected, it nearly was.  James looked at it, grinned, and muttered, "One more thing to do.  One-way silencing charm on the portrait, so we can hear them but they can't hear us."  This done, he threw the invisibility cloak over themselves once more, and crept back outside, shutting the door behind them.  Harry shrunk the mirror again, and put it back into his pocket.  They stole back up to the Gryffindor common room, with quarter of an hour to spare.

First checking that there was no-one in sight, Harry ducked out from under the cloak and went through the portrait hole first, leaving James following in his wake with the invisibility cloak covering him.  There was no-one in the common room, so they walked up to the dormitory.  They could hear talking inside.  James held up the cloak to the door, and they saw that Ron was in there, with Hermione (which wasn't common, she hardly ever came into the boys' dormitories) but not Seamus or Neville.  Ron was sitting on his bed, looking bored, but Hermione was frantically looking around Harry's bed to see if there were any clues as to where he was.  Quickly, he made sure that James was completely covered by the cloak, and whispered to him, "Follow me in, and sit on that bed over there," (he pointed to Seamus's bed), "whilst I explain to Ron and Hermione.

He stepped into the room slowly, so as to allow time for James to slip behind him and onto Seamus's bed.  "Morning Ron, Morning Hermione."  Hermione abandoned his bed, and dashed over him.

"_There_ you are!  Where have you been?  We've been looking all morning."

"Yeah, and missing breakfast," Ron muttered.  Harry grinned: Ron was not a morning person.

"Never mind that now, I've got something I need to explain to you."  He prepared the explanation in his mind, and paused.  This was the third time that morning he'd had to explain the same thing, and he was getting slightly tired of it.  He decided to junk his prepared explanation, and come straight to the point.  "I've brought my Dad back."

There was a long silence.  Harry began to have second thoughts – this was not a good way to tell them.  However, he'd started now, and he had to finish.  However, Hermione was looking at him with concern.

"Harry, what do you mean, you've brought him back?"

"Through the Marauder's Map.  They'd all put their memories and personalities into it, and one of them could come out of it.  Like Riddle's diary."

But the expression of concern on Hermione's face grew stronger.  "Harry, are you sure you're feeling OK?"  Ron was looking at him worriedly.  

Harry was getting annoyed.  They didn't believe him!  He started to snap at Hermione, but then thought better of it.  Would he have believed it if their positions were reversed?  He tried to explain it a bit better.

"James, Sirius, Remus and Wormtail all put a copy of themselves into the map, to keep control of all the magical energy they'd put there.  James was able to use that energy to create a new body, which he put the copy of himself into.  I brought him back."

Hermione was looking extremely worried by now.  "I – I'm not sure what to say..."

But Harry could tell that they still didn't believe him.  He decided to show them.

"If you still don't believe me, here's the proof!"  He went over to Seamus's bed, and reached out his hand.  He grasped at air.  He moved his hand over the bed, but James was no-where to be found.

Ron spoke up.  "Harry, do you want me to take you down to the hospital wing?"

Now they thought he was crazy.  He started to get angry, but then stopped and smiled.  He raised his wand.

"_Accio inviaability cloak!_"

A silver cloak came flying out from behind Ron, and flew over his head to land in Harry's hand.  James made a grab for it, but he was too late.  Ron and Hermione swung around, to be confronted with a grinning boy, who looked exactly the same as Harry, except for the lack of a scar and the hazel-coloured eyes.

They stared.

"Err... Hi," said James.

They continued staring.

Finally, Ron spoke.  "Are you really Harry's Dad?"

James nodded.

Ron continued.  "You're a bit... young to be his Dad, aren't you?"

James burst out laughing.  "I wasn't his Dad at the age I am now, you idiot.  This is just the age I was when we made the Map."

Ron looked a bit taken aback, but grinned back.  Hermione, however, was still staring, but at Ron's grin, she pulled herself together; Ron seemed to have broken the ice.  She shook herself, then took a stride towards James, and held out her hand, and opened her mouth.

"Hello, My name's Hermione Granger, I'm fifteen years old and best friends with Harry, and I'm so happy to meet you at last, and I hope we can become friends too."

Now it was James' turn to be taken aback, but he returned the smile.  "Pleased to meet you too.  You're the studious one, right?  The intellectual of the group."

Harry didn't remember telling James this, but he supposed he must have.  Hermione flushed with pleasure, but Ron nodded his head.  "You bet she is.  She got three hundred and twelve percent in one exam last year."  Hermione Flushed with embarrassment.  James, however, didn't look fazed.

"Which one?"

"Muggle studies."

"Muggle studies is easy," James countered.  "What did you get in transfiguration?"

"One hundred and forty-five percent."

"A hundred and sixty-two.  Well, see you in a few hours then, Harry and I have got to go down to Diagon Alley to get my school stuff."

Ron looked downcast. "Can't we come?"

This time it was Harry who answered.  "I don't think you should – people will notice we're not at school.  If you two stay behind, you can cover up for us.  Remember, don't tell anyone about James; Dumbledore's going to announce him at supper tonight as my twin brother from America.  See you this afternoon."

"See you," Ron replied.

After grabbing the key to his vault at Gringotts, Harry and James walked up to the fireplace, and each grabbed a pinch of floo powder from the pot on the mantelpiece.  Harry turned to James.  "I'm assuming that Dumbledore's opened the connection for us, they're usually kept closed."  James shrugged, and tossed the powder into the flames.

"Only one way to find out.  _Diagon Alley!_"

He was gone.  Harry threw his handful in as well, and followed after him.


	5. 

Harry had been worrying that everyone in Diagon Alley would recognise James, and ask awkward questions.  But it appeared his worries were unfounded.  Almost none of the people they passed noticed them at all, and for those that did, the 'twin brother from America' story, clichéd though it was, appeared to satisfy them.

Upon coming out of one of the fireplaces in the Leaky Cauldron, they had quickly made their way to the rear exit, managing to avoid any contact with anyone (Tom, the barman, was thankfully not looking their way), and tapping the brick three times – James had to remind Harry which one it was – made their way through the alley.  James was looking all around him, taking care not to catch anyone's eye, and giving Harry a running commentary on what had changed since when he was last here.

"_Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour_...  That used to a bad restaurant owned by some nut called Rudolphus.  And they've expanded _Quality Quidditch Supplies_ – there used to be a quill shop where the doorway is now.  Scrivenshafts or something.  Ollivanders is exactly the same, of course... Ah, Gringotts."

They had reached the large, white marble building that constituted the only wizards' bank.  James held his hand out to Harry.  "Have you got the key?"

"Yeah, hold on a sec...  There you go."

James walked up to one of the desks, and addressed the goblin behind it.  "We'd like to withdraw some money out of my vault.  My name's James Potter."

The goblin consulted a long piece of parchment, then looked back up at him.  "There is no vault belonging to anyone of that name," he replied, his voice expressionless.

James looked a little surprised, but Harry interrupted.  "It's probably in the name of Harry Potter."

Consulting the registrar again, the goblin looked up.  "You have the key?"

James replied in the affirmative, and dropped the small, golden key on the counter.  The goblin held it up to the light, gave a short nod, and called to one of the goblins waiting at the back of the hall, who led them down, through a door to one of the waiting carts.  They all climbed in, and James turned to Harry.  "I forgot – they'd have transferred the account to your name, after, well..."

Harry interrupted.  "Yeah."

They didn't speak more until they reached the vault, and after the goblin had unlocked the door, stepped inside.  They looked at each other.  James voiced what Harry was thinking.

"Under wizard law, is it technically yours or mine?"

Harry started to grin.  "Well, I suppose you left it to me in your will, so it's now mine."

James returned the grin.  "Ah, but now I'm alive I can nullify the will.  So it's mine."

They both started laughing.  To anyone else, this would have been awkward.  But not to them.

"Should we divide it in half?  We'll probably have to eventually, when we get older."

"We can cross that bridge when we come to it.  Let's just keep a joint account for now.  You OK with that?"

"Course.  Come on then, I want to see what advances in broomstick technology there have been in the last twenty years."

They both swept a small pile of galleons, sickles and knuts into small leather bags that the goblin held out, left the vault, and climbed back into the cart.  Harry turned to the goblin.

"Do you think you could get us another key to this vault, please?  Under the name of James Potter."

"It will be attended to," he (or she, or it, Harry wondered) replied, and upon reaching the top, climbed out and went through one of the marble doors behind the counters.  Not more than twenty seconds later, another goblin in gold and red uniform walk up to them, and gave them one key each.  "Your keys, sir," he added, quite unnecessarily, and walked away again.  James and Harry looked at each other, shrugged, and walked out into the fresh, morning breeze.

"Quidditch first, or your wand?" Harry asked.

"Neither," came the reply.  "I'm starving."

Harry grinned.  "I'm not surprised, seeing as you haven't eaten in twenty years.  Come on then, let's go to Fortescue's.  They do pastries there."

After an apple pie and a custard tart, respectively, they wandered over to Ollivanders, glancing at a display of magical clocks in a shop window as they passed.  "It's eleven o'clock – the staff meeting usually starts at two, after lunch, so we've got three hours, which should be enough,"  muttered James in Harry's ear.  As they approached the famous wand shop, however, they paused.  Harry looked at James.

"Do you think he'll recognise you?"

James nodded.   "He never forgets anyone, apparently.  Nothing for it, though – I need to have a wand."

Harry nodded, and they pushed open the door together.  A tinkling bell sounded somewhere in the back of the shop.

An old man with wide, pale eyes suddenly appeared out of the gloom before them.  He regarded them solemnly for a moment.

"Err... Hi," Harry started.  "This is my twin – from America."

Mr. Ollivander said nothing.

Harry tried again.  "Er... He was sent over there because of Vol... You-Know-Who."

Mr. Ollivander still said nothing, but at last he nodded, and started pulling boxes off the shelves.

"Try this one.  Walnut and unicorn hair, eleven inches.  Inflexible."  James took it and waved it, but it was snatched from his hands almost immediately.

"Mahogany and unicorn hair, twelve and a half inches, supple."  James tried again, but the wand was unresponding.

"Cherry and unicorn hair, ten and a half inches, rigid."

"Mahogany and unicorn hair, nine and a half inches, rather bendy."

"I don't suppose – Rosewood and phoenix feather, twelve inches, quite yielding."

This wand obtained a reaction, but it was not a good one: a jet of red light came out of it, and a crack appeared in one of the shelves.  It was seized out of James' hand immediately, and Mr. Ollivander fixed the crack with a wave of his own wand.

"No... better to stick with what we know.  Oak and unicorn hair, eleven and a half inches, flexible."  Again, there was no reaction.

"Mahogany and unicorn hair, twelve and a quarter inches, quite springy."

Harry noticed that Mr. Ollivander kept returning to the same combination of Mahogany and unicorn hair.  He glanced at James, but there was no time to ask him; yet another wand was being pressed into his hand.

"Mahogany and unicorn hair, twelve inches, pliable.

This time, a jet of gold stars erupted from the wand as soon as soon as he took it, and more came out upon waving it around.  Mr. Ollivander gave a smile.  "Congratulations!  I should have known – should have known...  It's a little longer than your old one, but I daresay you will get used to that.  Seven Galleons, if you please?"

Harry shot an alarmed look at James, who paid quickly and scurried out of the shop.

"He knew who you were."

"I know."

"What's he going to think?

James could only shrug, as they turned into _Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions_.  He started examining his Hogwarts letter, which had a list of required clothes, as Madam Malkin, a plump, smiling witch, bustled up to them.  "Hogwarts?" She asked them.

"Just me," replied James.

"Leaving it a little late, aren't you?  Oh well, come along then," she said, smiling, pointing her wand a tape measure on the floor, which promptly started measuring various parts of James' body.  Harry wandered off to the winter cloak section; it was starting to get chilly, and he had outgrown his old one.

Their robes purchased, Harry started towards _Quality Quidditch Supplies_, but James stopped him.  "I want to save that till last," he said with a grin, as they went into _Flourish and Blotts_, and James consulted the book list.  They wandered around the shop, with James commenting on each of the books as they picked them up.

"_The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 5)_ – that probably hasn't changed since the school was founded.  _A History of Magic_ – Binns is still teaching, then..."

"Was he alive in your time?" Harry asked.

"No, no – he's been teaching as a ghost for about five hundred years, I think.  _Magical Theory_'s the same, as is _Advanced Transfiguration..._  _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ – Professor Sprout still teaching then?  She came in our first year... _Magical Drafts and Potions?_  That's different – it was _The Complete Book of Potions_ for me.  Who's the new potions master?"

"Professor Snape," Harry replied.  "You'd better watch out for him, he's really biased against Gryffindors..."  He trailed off, as he realised that James wasn't listening.  He was staring at him.

"_Snape?  Severus Snape?_  _He's_ potions master??"

But Harry had suddenly remembered something Dumbledore had said in the first year.

_"Quirrell said he hates me because he hated my father. Is that true?"_

_"Well, they did rather detest each other. Not unlike yourself and Mr._

_Malfoy."_

"Dumbledore said you were at school with him, and you hated each other."

"Hated?  That's an understatement.  That slimy, greasy-haired bastard..."  His voice was rising, and people were started to look at them.  Harry shot him a warning look.

He composed himself, and went on.  "Sorry.  But... He was absolutely unbearable at school.  Immersed himself in the dark arts, hated muggle-borns... I never lost an opportunity to hex him, teach him a lesson."

Harry started grinning.  "I wish I could have seen that.  No wonder he hates me."

James, however, was looking thoughtful.  "I'm surprised he's a teacher.  I'd have thought he's become a Death Eater as soon as he could."

"He did," Harry replied.  "Then he decided to change sides.  I assume he told Voldemort he was going to pretend to redeem himself and become a teacher so he could spy on Dumbledore, but actually did change sides and became Dumbledore's way to spy on the Death Eaters."

"I bet he's really spying on Dumbledore for Voldemort."

"I don't think anyone except him knows what side he's really on.  But Dumbledore trusts him, and Dumbledore's the most powerful wizard I know."

"Voldemort trusts him as well.  And he's the second most powerful."

Harry glanced at the clock at the back of the store.  "We can discuss it later, the staff meeting starts in an hour."

James reluctantly nodded his head, and looked down at his booklist again.  "_Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them _and _The Monster Book of Monsters_.  We had the first one, but not the second with Professor Kettleburn.  Who's the new Care of Magical Creatures teacher?"

Harry grinned.  "Hagrid".

"Hagrid?  But wasn't he expelled?"

"Yeah, but that was because everyone thought he opened the Chamber of Secrets, and he was cleared in my second year – remember, I told you about it."

"Oh yeah.  Are his lessons good?"

"Well, he's either showing us something really impressive, like hippogriffs, or if anyone's got hurt recently, he'll get us to do stuff like flobberworms, because he's scared that he'll be sacked.  Or his own weird self-bred stuff – he had these things called blast-ended skrewts last year...  Now I come to think of it, though, he wasn't at the staff table at the welcome feast.  He didn't take the first-years over the lake either.  I wonder where he's gone?"

James shrugged, and looked down at his booklist again.  "_The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection_.  That's pretty standard, I suppose... T_he constellations of the northern hemisphere_... _Unfogging the Future_?  What?  I don't do Divination, I do Muggle Studies!"

Harry frowned, looking at the booklist.  "Maybe Dumbledore forgot."

James shook his head.  "I think it's because he wants me in the same classes as you.  Dunno why, though."

Harry shrugged, and they paid and left the bookshop, James shrinking the books down to the size of postage stamps and putting them in his pocket as they made their way over to the Apothecary for some potion ingredients.  All that was left was a cauldron, a set of glass philes, a telescope, and some brass scales; these being duly purchased, Harry glanced at the display of clocks they had passed earlier that day. It was a quarter to two.

"We'd better get to somewhere where we can watch the meeting in private," Harry muttered to James.

"How about getting a private room in the Leaky Cauldron?"

"Good idea."

They made their way back to the pub, and Harry asked Tom for the room.  James followed them under the invisibility cloak (they didn't want to take more risks than necessary), as Tom led him to room 11, "Just for a few hours, as I've got someone coming in the evening".

Once Tom had gone, Harry opened the door to let James in, and got the mirror out.  James performed an engorgement charm on it to see it until it was the size of one of the walls, and Harry attached it with a sticking charm.  They sat on the edge of the bed to watch.  It was five to two, but no-one had come in yet.

"They usually all leave the dining hall together on Sundays, and come straight here.  They should be here in ten minutes," James said.  He paused.  "Potions lessons are going to be hell this year, with Snape teaching."

Harry had to agree.  If Snape was so nasty to him because he was James' son, how nasty would be he to James himself?

"Maybe Dumbledore won't tell him," he suggested, hopefully.

"That won't work.  He'll recognise me."

Harry was thinking back to what Dumbledore had said in the first year.

_"Well, they did rather detest each other. Not unlike yourself and Mr._

_Malfoy. And then, your father did something Snape could never forgive."_

_"What?"_

_"He saved his life."_

These triggered off another memory in him, this time in his third year.

_I would hate for you to run away with a false idea of your father, Potter.  Have you been imagining some act of glorious heroism? Then let me correct you – your saintly father and his friends played a highly amusing joke on me that would have resulted in my death if your father hadn't got cold feet at the last moment. There was nothing brave about what he did. He was saving his own skin as much as mine. Had their joke succeeded, he would have been expelled from Hogwarts."_

"What did you actually do?"

James looked puzzled.  "What are you talking about?"

"In my first year, Dumbledore told me you saved his life.  Then in my third year, Snape said you played a joke on him that would have got him killed, but changed your mind at the last minute.  What actually happened?"

James looked puzzled.  "I don't remember anything like that.  I hexed him a few times, but nothing that would kill him.  And certainly nothing where I changed my mind about it at the last minute."  He shrugged.  "Maybe it happened in sixth or seventh year."

Harry didn't say anything.  He was sure he knew from somewhere what had happened.  It involved Sirius – and Snape thought that Lupin was in on the joke, and that was why he hated him – but he couldn't remember the rest of it, or where he'd heard it.

But he didn't have time to think about it, as the first of the teachers was walking in to the staff room.


	6. 

First to enter was Professor McGonagall, who briskly walked up to her desk, pulled a sheath of parchments towards her, took out her quill, and started marking before James had time to comment.

"She looks pretty much the same, just a few more lines on her face."

Next came Professor Sinistra, the astronomy teacher, who walked right up to the portrait where they'd hidden the mirror, and suddenly dropped out of view.  Harry caught his breath, but James gave him a reassuring look.  "Her desk is below the portrait, we won't be able to see her."

Professor Sprout and Sybill Trelawney came next, the former sitting down at her desk on the left of their view and the latter in a chair by the fireplace; she obviously did not have a desk in the staff room.  James was concentrating on the former, however.  "She's grown a bit – she was only about twenty-five in my year."

After them came Madam Hooch, towering over Professor Flitwick, who came behind her.  James chuckled to himself.  "He _hasn't_ grown.  Still as short as ever."  Closely on their heels were Professor Vector, the Arithmancy teacher, and two more, one male and one female, who Harry didn't know.  He shot a questioning glance at James.  "He teaches Muggle Studies, she teaches Ancient Runes," he answered, seemingly reading his mind.

There was a short pause whilst they found all their desks, and then came Snape, striding trough the doorway with his robes billowing behind him.  James gaped at him, with a look of complete and utter disgust.

"He still managed to look exactly the same as ever.  Same robes that are too big for him, same skin that makes him look like a vampire, same way of looking at you down that great big nose of his – I bet he hasn't washed his hair since he was in his fifth year, as well."  He paused.  "Potions lessons are going to be hell," he repeated again.

They did not have much time to contemplate this, however, as the door opened, and Hagrid, with some difficulty, squeezed in.  From the looks of surprise the other teachers gave him, he did not usually attend the staff meetings.  And their astonishment only increased as in trooped Madam Pince, the librarian, and Poppy Pomfrey, the school nurse, closely followed by the caretaker, Argus Filch, with what looked like a puzzled sneer on his face.  They looked around for more seats, but these had all been taken by the teachers, with the exception of Dumbledore's and Lupin's.  Professor McGonagall, glancing around, conjured up some hard, wooden-backed chairs by the fireplace, hastily putting a strengthening charm on the one that Hagrid was aiming for.  She was frowning, but stayed silent.

The room was still for a moment, with the exception of Professor Binns walking in through the right-hand wall and Flitwick's desk, coming to rest in a non-existent chair by the fireplace, seemingly oblivious to the four extra people squeezed up by the fire.  Finally, the silence was broken by the women who James had said was the Muggle Studies teacher.

"I don't want to be rude, but I assume Dumbledore asked you to attend?"

The question was aimed at the non-teaching staff members, but was answered by Hagrid.  "Yup, said there was somethin' important he want'd to discuss with the whole staff."

The teachers were now throwing nervous glances at each other.  Harry didn't think it was any big deal; surely Dumbledore had had meetings with the whole staff before now?  He voiced his question to James, who replied with a thoughtful air.

"He never had meetings with the whole staff when I was there, but I heard it talked about a couple of time.  I assume it's just such a rare occasion that if it happens, the teachers know that there's something really, _really_ important that they need to talk about.  Like me."  He grinned.

Just then, however, Dumbledore strode in, followed by Remus Lupin, who sat down at his desk, whilst Dumbledore walked to the far end of the room (the far right of their field of vision) and sat down, surveying the staff with a practiced eye.

"You are wondering why I have requested that the whole staff attend this week's meeting.  The answer is that this is something that concerns all of us, and that you all will need to understand in preparation for this upcoming term."

A few of the teachers were starting to look impatient, eager to hear what this news might be.  Dumbledore, however, was not to be hurried.

"Cast your minds back to nineteen seventy-five, twenty years ago.  Who were the most notable students in the fifth year, the same year as Severus?"

Some of the teachers were looking annoyed at Dumbledore's questioning of them as though they were students and he was giving them a problem to solve in class.  Harry, however, understood.  He whispered to James, "He wants the rest of the teachers to tell _him_ what's happened, not the other way round.  That way they can't _not_ believe him.  Clever."  James merely nodded, still looking at Dumbledore.

Some of the teachers glanced at Professor Lupin, as if expecting him to answer; but he merely sat and watched, surveying the proceedings with a deliberately expressionless face.

It was McGonagall who answered.  "Are you referring to Potter, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew?"

Dumbledore just nodded.  "What made them so notable?"

From the way he asked, it was obvious that he was asking what they had done at that time that made them noticeable, rather than merely memorable from later events.

"Well..." McGonagall paused, and glanced at Professor Lupin, who nodded.  "They were such troublemakers – always managing to sneak around the school for their next prank, yet never being caught whilst doing so in their last few years, only when it was too late, and it had already been carried out.  And yet always got excellent marks in class – Potter especially, in transfiguration.  He was the only person I have ever taught who was not responsible enough to become a prefect, but had too good marks _not_ to make him head boy."

She was speaking directly to Dumbledore, who nodded every so often, as an indication that she was going in the right track.  At the end, he gave a final nod, and turned to the rest of the teachers, as an indication that Professor McGonagall should stop speaking.  James didn't notice, however; his mouth had dropped open at the mention of his being head boy.  Dumbledore, however, didn't give him time to dwell on this.

"Precisely."  The headmaster paused.  "Do any of you recognise this?"  He held up a piece of aged parchment, which Harry recognised as what had once been the Marauder's Map.

Snape, who had been listening to their conversation with narrowed eyes, suddenly gave a start.  "That parchment!  That is Potter's – the younger Potter – I have seen him with it.  And..."  He paused.  Harry could tell he was remembering that incident in the second year, when it has insulted him.  "It had belonged to Potter, Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew!"  He shot a glance of loathing at Professor Lupin.

Dumbledore, however, gave a confirmatory nod.  "Did you ever find out what it was?"

Snape looked exceptionally angry.  He paused, as if to think of an answer that would not imply that he had not been able to discover what it was.  "How should I know what the blasted thing does?  Ask Lupin, he will tell you!"

Dumbledore nodded, and turned his head to Professor Lupin.  "Could you give a quick explanation, Remus?"

Lupin nodded.  "It is a map.  It showed a plan of the whole of Hogwarts, enchanted to resemble the real one, including the location of everyone in it."  He deliberately refrained from giving any more detail.

Professor Flitwick looked intrigued.  "How did you manage to show the location of everyone, when that would constantly change?  You would need a permanent source of magic to keep it working."

Dumbledore nodded at him.  "Go on."

Flitwick looked a little uncomfortable, but continued.  "The only way you could do that would have been to keep your wand on it the entire time – except if you tried to discharge your animanavitas into it, and that would leave you dead."  He was speaking more to Remus than Dumbledore now.

Professor McGonagall looked at Lupin sharply.  "Except if you each contributed a fourth..."  He nodded.  McGonagall let out a slow breath.

But Flitwick was frowning now.  "Even so, so much magical energy trapped inside a piece of parchment would not be controllable!  It would need a mind to control it."

Remus answered with one word.  "Exactly."

Flitwick looked horrified.  "You put your minds into a piece of parchment?  A conscious being, trapped forever in paper?  It would go mad within a week!  What charm did you use?"

"I used _repono totalus_," he replied.

The shorter man looked at Remus in surprise.  "But repono totalus would not provide a consciousness to control it, it would merely store a copy of your mind in the parchment."

Lupin nodded.  "You are correct.  But when used on parchment, is apparently has the side effect of allowing some of your personality through."

Flitwick nodded.  "I see."  But then he suddenly looked, horrified, at the piece of parchment in Dumbledore's hand.  "So that means... that means that an exact copy of all four of your minds is in that parchment – along with the animanavitas equivalent to one person's life energy..."  He faded out, staring at the parchment, transfixed.

McGonagall spoke up.  She too was staring at the parchment, as though mesmerised by it.  "If that contains a mind, a new person could be created from that life energy, from that mind."

There was a long pause, and then Professor Sprout voiced what they were all thinking, except Dumbledore and Remus.  "James."

Dumbledore nodded.  They had reached the desired conclusion, with hardly any prodding needed.  "Precisely."

Snape, who had been staring at the parchment, suddenly snapped his head around at this to face Dumbledore.  "You plan to resurrect James?" He queried, his voice a mixture of shock, horror, and disbelief.

"No, Severus," Dumbledore started, and Snape began to relax.  "That has already been done."

Snape alleared to have been stuck dumb.  When he spoke, it was in a whisper, but it was a whisper charged with horror.  "What?"

The other teachers were likewise staring, with expressions of shock, disbelief, and wonderment on their faces, awaiting Dumbledore's answer.  It was short and to the point.

"Harry discovered this last night.  He has brought back a fifteen year old James."

A number of the staff gave violent exclamations at this, and everyone started talking at once.

"James..."

"He couldn't possibly..."

"Where is..."

"Enough!" Dumbledore roared, and immediately the talking died down, though there were still mutters.

"He is currently in London with Harry, buying his school supplies.  I will introduce him tonight as Harry's twin brother, who was sent over to America to keep him safe from Voldemort, and is now returning.  I need not tell you what would happen if the Ministry found out what has really happened, and it is therefore imperative that you tell no-one, especially not any of the students, the truth."

"And now, I fear we must close this meeting here; school is starting tomorrow, and you no-doubt have classes to prepare.  I will see you at this evenings feast."

Some of the teachers exchanged glances at this; it was not usual for Dumbledore to dismiss them so abruptly.  But the look on his face bore no argument, so they began to file out, one by one. It was clear that most of them were still processing this turn of events, with dazed looks all round.  The exception was Snape, who walked up to the Headmaster with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Headmaster, you cannot expect me to teach him.  You cannot."

Dumbledore glanced up at him, a slightly angry look flittering across his face.

"I _do_ expect you to teach him, Severus.  Moreover, I expect you to treat him like any other student."

"But..."

Dumbledore interrupted.  "Do I make myself clear?"  His voice was calm, but his eyes, spoke of dangerous territories.

Snape closed his eyes, and opened them again.  "Yes, Headmaster."

"Then why don't you retire to your quarters, Severus," Dumbledore said, his voice instantly cheerful again.  "I wouldn't want you to have to stay up late tonight preparing for the lessons tomorrow."

"Yes, Headmaster," Snape repeated, his voice angry and sullen, and swept out of the staff room.

Dumbledore nodded to himself.  He glanced at the portrait above Professor Sinistra's desk behind which James had concealed the mirror, and nodded, smiling to himself.  He looked up again.

"Can you two meet me back in my office at six, I need to make arrangements for your Sorting."

And with that, he gathered up the former Marauder's map, and strode calmly out of the room.

Harry and James looked at each other, shrugged, and began to gather up their stuff, ready to venture back down into Diagon Alley.


	7. 

With James following behind in the invisibility cloak, Harry thanked Tom, and the duo made their way back to the small area behind the Leaky Cauldron that contained the entrance to Diagon Alley.  James tossed the cloak into the air, and, hitting it with a shrinking charm on its way back down, caught it, and put it in his pocket.  He was clearly enjoying his new wand, giving it a flourish and tapping the stone that led to the alley.  He made a beeline for _Quality Quidditch Supplies_, stopping outside the window to view the contents therein.  Harry stared with him, but after a moment, glanced sideways at him.

"What was your last broom?"

"A QuidditchMaster Lightning.  It wasn't that manoeuvrable, but damned fast.  Nothing like that in the window, though – don't QuidditchMaster make brooms anymore?"

Harry shrugged.  "I haven't heard of them.  I've got a Firebolt: Sirius gave it to me as thirteen years worth of birthday presents.  It's absolutely amazing. It was limited edition, though, so you probably can't get it any more."  He paused.  "Were you a seeker as well?"

James looked up for the first time, surprised.  "Seeker?  No, I was a chaser.  How did you become a seeker?"

Harry shrugged again.  "Neville – he's the other guy in our dorms – had got a remembrall from his grandmother.  We were having out first flying lesson, and Malfoy...  Now I come to think of it, did you know his Father?"

James furrowed his brow, trying to remember.  "I seem to remember someone called Malfoy – his seventh year was my first year.  Slytherin prefect."

"That would be Lucius Malfoy.  This is his son.  First name's Draco, but we just know him as Malfoy, for obvious reasons."

"Slytherin?"

"Course.  Anyway, he took the remembrall, and threatened to leave it in a tree.  I went up there to get it back, and he dropped it down from about fifty foot.  I caught it, and McGonagall saw me through a window.  I thought she was going to expel me at first, but then she told me I was in the house team!"

James, who had been grinning since the bit about flying up to get the remembrall back, started laughing.  "You must be good, even I wasn't on the team in my first year."  He paused.  "You know, that Malfoy guy sounds like Snape, when he was at school."

"From your description, he probably is.  Come on, let's go in."

After looking at all the different models available, from a Comet two-ninety to the latest racing broom, the Pulsar.  Eventually it came down to a choice between that, a Nimbus 3000, or a Cleansweep Nuclear SE.  The Pulsar won out, not least due to the three year warranty included in the price.  James shrunk it down to the size of a match, placed a location charm on it in case he lost it, and added it to his already crowded pocket.

James looked satisfied with his purchase as they wandered out of the shop ten minutes later (Harry had not been able to resist buying a few refills for his broomstick servicing kit).  He consulted his list of equipment.

"Anything else you need?" Harry asked, looking over his shoulder at the parchment.

"Don't think so...  What about an owl?  I'm probably going to need to use one a lot over the next few weeks."

"I've already got one," Harry replied.  "Hagrid got her for my eleventh birthday.  She's called Hedwig."

"Weird name.  When is your birthday anyway?"

"Last day of July.  Yours?"

"Last day of October."

Harry stopped suddenly, and glanced at James sharply.  "Halloween?"

James looked puzzled.  "Yes, why?"

There was a pause before Harry replied.  "Nothing.  Never mind."

They walked on a bit, but it was in an uncomfortable silence; James could tell Harry was keeping something for him.  Harry, meanwhile, was remembering his promise to himself last night.  _I had finally found someone I can trust implicitly.  I am not going to have any more secrets from James._

He kept walking, but finally spoke.  He could not, would not keep anything from him. 

"Halloween was the night that you were killed."

James' eyes widened, but he stayed silent.  However, the tension that had been in the silence before – not that anyone other than them could have noticed it – had vanished.  

He glanced at the display of clocks they had passed before, and gave a start.  "It's half past five, we're supposed to be back at Dumbledore's by six."

Harry nodded, and they started back to the Leaky Cauldron.  James got out the invisibility cloak behind the pub and threw it over himself as they trooped in.  After walking straight over to the nearest fireplace, Harry took a large handful of floo powder, larger than he needed, and throwing it into the flames, muttered, "Hogwarts, Headmaster's office."  He stepped in, motioning for James to follow him before the fire went back to normal.

A few moments later they both tumbled into Dumbledore's office, James clutching the invisibility cloak tightly.  Dumbledore looked up, smiling.

"Excellent.  You have everything you need?"

"Yes, Sir – at least, I hope so..."  He dug into his pockets, checking that nothing had fallen out in the floo journey.  Dumbledore turned to Harry.

"Your father will have to stay here for now so I can arrange for his arrival.  You will see him in about an hour, when he is Sorted."  Dumbledore turned back to James, and Harry took that as his cue to leave.  Throwing one last glance at them, he turned and left the circular office, and made his way back to the Gryffindor common room.

He was met by Ron and Hermione at the entrance hole, who immediately started questioning him on what happened.  Harry held up his hands to plead for silence.

"We went to Diagon Alley to get James's school stuff.  He got a new wand, books, robes, a broomstick..."

Ron interrupted.  "Which broomstick did he get?"  Hermione looked at him irately, as if she could think of nothing less important at the present moment than which broomstick he got.  Harry, however, answered.

"A pulsar."

"Really?  Wow...  We need a keeper now that Wood's left, is he going to try for that?"

"I don't think so," Harry replied.  "He said he was a chaser.  I remember McGonagall saying he was a really good player back in my first year; I don't think he's going to want to change position."

"But we've got three chasers - Alicia Spinnet, Katie Bell, and Angela Johnson."

Harry shrugged, but before he could reply, Hermione, who looked like she was getting very annoyed with this conversational tangent, interrupted.  "Where is he now?"

"Err... I left him with Dumbledore, to make arrangements for his Sorting."

Hermione looked slightly alarmed.  "Sorting?  So he may not be in Gryffindor."

Harry started to reply, but Ron got in before he could.  "He'll be in Gryffindor."

"How do you know?"  Hermione questioned.

"Because the fifth year boys' dormitory has somehow changed shape to accommodate six people instead of five."

Hermione relaxed.  "It's charmed to automatically morph to accommodate however many people are going to be in the house that year," she explained to Ron.  "I read about it in _Hogwarts: A History_."

Harry hadn't commented, settling for merely smiling slightly.  He had never had any doubts that James would be a Gryffindor.

Hermione was thinking.  "I wonder what the teachers will think when they see him.  They'll recognise him, surely.  They'd never buy Dumbledore's shipped-over-from-America story."

"Dumbledore's told them the truth.  They had a staff meeting this afternoon, with everyone, not just the teachers.  Snape was furious.  They haven't met him yet, though.  Except Lupin."

Hermione raised her eyebrows, but didn't ask the obvious question of how they could have known that Snape was angry if they weren't there.  Harry winced slightly as he realised his slip-up, but luckily Ron interrupted.  "Lupin?  He's teaching Defence again this year, then?"

"Yup.  Arrived late last night.  Wasn't he at lunch?"

"No," Ron replied, puzzled.  He shook it off.  "This could be so amazing.  Your Dad and us...  Do you think he could teach us how to become Animagi?"

Hermione frowned slightly.  "It took him three years to become one, and he was supposed to be one of the brightest students in the year.  Remember what Professor McGonagall said in the third year, about him and Sirius?  _Both exceptionally bright, of course, but I don't think we've ever had such a pair of troublemakers_."

Ron stared at her in amazement.  "How do you remember exactly what she said two years ago?"

"I _listen_, Ron," she said, exasperated.  She turned to Harry.  Harry, however, was looking at the clock on the wall.  "It's nearly half past seven, we'd better be getting down to dinner."

Ron glanced at the clock as well, and nodded.  They stood up, Hermione smoothing her robes, and trooped down to the great Hall.

They were a little early, but there were a few other people there as well, and more were coming in every second.  However, all the teachers were there except for Professor McGonagall, and most of the conversation around the hall seemed to be centred around Remus, who was sitting at the head table pretending not very successfully to be utterly oblivious to the pointing and muttering.  Harry perked up his ears: there seemed to be some quite fierce arguments, conducted in whispers, going on at some of the tables, but no outright fear seemed to be displayed except from the first and second years, who had not been taught by him two years ago.  Most of the Slytherin table were muttering to each other, scowling.  Harry looked up and caught Remus's eye; he nodded, gave a brief hint of a smile, and turned back to his conversation with Dumbledore.

Once the hall was full, and the stream of students entering had ceased, Dumbledore rose, and the hall fell silent.

"I have a few announcements, which I am afraid you will have to suffer through before that excellent feast.  Firstly, I would like to welcome back Professor Lupin, who has returned for a hopefully permanent position, teaching Defence against the Dark Arts."  There was quite a lot of applause, mostly from the Gryffindor table, but also from the third years and above from the other tables (with the exception of Slytherin). Dumbledore went on.

"As I am sure everyone in the third year or above knows, Professor Lupin is a werewolf."  None of the first or second years looked surprised at that, Harry noted; although some of them shrank back into their seats, the rumour having been confirmed.  Dumbledore waited a moment, and continued.  "I sincerely hope that no student will hold against him something that he has no control over, and I can assure you that, thanks to the Wolfsbane potion which Professor Snape is kindly brewing for him, he is of no possible danger to anyone.  Any evidence of bigotry and prejudice will be investigated most carefully, but I have faith that none of you will fall into the ever present trap of narrow-mindedness.

"Secondly, I would like you all to welcome a new student into our Fifth year, James Potter, who is the brother of one of our other fifth year students, Harry Potter.  He has just returned from America where he was sent to escape Voldemort, and was not able to arrive in time to attend the normal Sorting, so he will be sorted now.  Minerva?"

The great oak doors swung open, and Professor McGonagall walked in, James walking behind her.  The teachers, with the exception of Dumbledore, were staring at him wide-eyed; with one or two of them going pale, as if they were muggles who had seen a ghost for the first time.  None of the students seemed to have noticed, however; most seemed to be glancing between him and Harry, and there was renewed whispering, but this was quickly silenced as McGonagall took out the familiar Sorting Hat, and placed it on a three-legged stool.  James strode confidently up to it, seemingly enjoying the way the whole school had their attention fixed on him.  Harry didn't notice this, though; he was concentrating on James, who was lifting up the Sorting Hat.  He had to struggle a bit to pull it down over his head, Harry noted; the Hat was designed for first years, not fifth years.  He succeeded without too much trouble, though, and true to form, a shout of "GRYFFINDOR" reverberated around the hall a few seconds later.  After pulling the hat up off his head, (which pulled his hair back as well, giving it an interesting wind-swept effect), he placed it back on the stool, and walked over to the space Harry had left between him and Hermione.  Dumbledore stood once more; but it was only to say "Tuck in", and food appeared in the golden dishes in front of them.

Harry and James immediately started eating: they hadn't all day except for the pastries in _Florean Fortescue's_.  Hermione, however, turned to James.

"So what was it actually like for you at Hogwarts?  I mean, all we know," (she indicated Ron and herself), "is what Remus and Sirius have told us, which isn't much, and the fact that you had an invisibility cloak and made the Marauder's map.  Except you became an animagus, and were Head boy, and..."

James cut off the stream of prose with a wave of his hand.  He put down his fork, and looked thoughtful.

"I suppose I'd better explain from the beginning.  I'd known Sirius for ages; he used to come round to my house long before we went to Hogwarts.  We met Remus and Peter on the train in our first year.  Remus was quite reclusive, and Peter was just nervous.  We were the only four Gryffindors in our year, so we all shared a dormitory.  My Dad gave me a lot of tutoring in magic and how it really worked before I came to Hogwarts, so I found I had a bit of an advantage over them – when you've been learning how something works since you were born, you find it much easier.  So I found myself starting to help the Sirius and the rest of them – mainly Sirius – in their homework.  Sirius learnt really quickly, and soon he was as good as me.  Remus, though, preferred studying from books; and Peter never really seemed to get the hang of anything, though he tried hard enough.

"It wasn't until our second year that we started playing pranks.  We'd discovered about Remus at the end of our first year, and we were looking for ways to help him.  In the summer holidays I found my Dad's old invisibility cloak in the attic – I think he'd forgotten about it – and brought it to school in the second year.  We could keep him company in the hospital wing, even when we weren't supposed to be there.  And that opened the door to the whole of Hogwarts at night, which we could explore.  Sirius and I had been playing pranks and practical jokes for years on my parents when he came over, and with the school at our disposal at night, we started to try it here.  We told Remus all about what we'd done too cheer him up when he was in the hospital wing, and he started coming along too: he was a great lateral thinker, came up with loads of ideas for pranks.  We brought Peter in on it too – he was wondering where we were every night.  The professors worked out it was us eventually, and we started being more open about it – playing jokes, hoaxes, mucking around in class – you know the sort of thing.  We used to get loads of detentions, but in never bothered us.  We'd also all started working on being animagi, but we didn't succeed until the end of last year, when we also made the Map, to stop us getting caught so much..."

At this last sentence, he glanced at the clock on the wall behind the head table.  "I'll tell you more later; if I don't start eating now, I won't finish before they bring the deserts out."  He started eating at top speed, but when the main course was cleared away and the deserts brought out, he glanced at Harry, Ron and Hermione.

"Do you want to have pudding, or shall we go up to the dorms?  I need to unpack all my stuff."

The others nodded, Ron doing so rather reluctantly, and wandered back up to the boys' dormitories.  Once in there, James started emptying everything he'd brought in Diagon Alley out of his pocket, and started engorging them all back to their normal size.  Ron sat on his bed, and turned to James, but before he could speak, Hermione interjected.  

"Can you show us your animagus transformation?  I've read a lot about them, but I'd like to see what's it's really like."

James grinned.  "Sure."  He dropped the book he was enlarging on the pile, and started concentrating.

A few seconds later, he stopped, and looked down at himself, puzzled.  "That's funny.  It's never failed before.  Not since I learnt how to do it, anyway."

Hermione looked thoughtful.  "Did you use the _venenum_ method when you made yourselves animagi?"  
  


"Venenum?  You mean with a potion?  Yeah, why?"

"Hermione nodded.  "You're forgetting that you're in a new body now.  Any potion that you drank in your old one won't be there any more."

James gulped, but nodded.  "Oh yeah, I'd forgotten."  He paused, but looked up again.  "Oh well.  It'll only take a fortnight to brew up the potion again."

Ron looked up at him, puzzled. "If it only takes a fortnight to brew, why did it take you three years to become an animagus?"

"If you just drink the potion, and try to transform into an animal at random, it'll completely muck you up.  You'll only transform some parts of your body, or just mutilate yourself, and you won't be able to change back.  It'll only work successfully if you work out exactly what animal your personality fits.  And it has to be exactly – if you get the wrong markings or something, you're toast.  So obviously, you can't just guess – you need years of concentration, meditation, and mind-altering potions to discover it inside yourself.  That's what takes so long."

Ron nodded.  "So you don't have any choice in what sort of animal you have?"

"Nope – the animal chooses you, not the other way round.  It's based on your character, personality – even what you wear, if it's become an integral part of yourself, comes out through the markings on the animal."  He tapped his glasses, which were an exact copy of Harry's, courtesy of James' transfiguration skills and an _effingo_ charm.

Harry, however, was thinking hard.  "So, does that mean that I'll be able to become an animagus without needing to have to meditate to discover it inside myself, because mine would just be the same as yours?"

James shook his head.  "I don't think so.  Remember, you're – you're Lily's son as well, so you may not be the same animal as me.  And even if you were, I couldn't just describe it to you, you need to see it _exactly_ as it will be, and the only way to do that without actually transforming is to do it in your minds eye."

Harry looked thoughtful, but suddenly smiled.  "No, it isn't.  And my animagus _will_ be the same as yours."

James frowned.  "How do you know?"

"Have you ever heard of the Patronus charm?" Harry asked.

"No, what does it do?"

"It's a projection of your personality in animal form. Its magical energy is provided by your own happiness, so it's used to ward off dementors.  Watch."  He only needed to concentrate on one thought – he was with his Dad again...  "_Expecto Patronem!_"

A silver stag erupted from his wand, trotted over towards James, and bowed its head.

This was the first time that Harry had cast a Patronus where there were no dementors nearby to sap its energy, and he had the time to actually stop and look at it properly without it fading away.  He realised that it wasn't really silver, but it glowed with such a bright silver light that you could easily be forgiven for thinking that it was.  It had reddish-brown skin, long, curved antlers, and green eyes with white, circular markings around them, as well as a lightning-bolt shaped patch of white fur on its forehead.

James stared, wide-eyed, for a good thirty seconds, then reached out, and stroked it with one hand.  He gave his head a shake, as if to clear it.

"If we knew about this when we did it...  You're sure that your animagus will be the same as this?"

"Well, your animagus is a stag, my patronus is a stag," Harry replied.  "As you're my Dad, it's pretty logical that my animagus form will also be one, as will your patronus."  

"Well, we can test the latter easily enough, anyway.  Did you say you had to concentrate on something happy?"

"Yup – the most easy thing is a happy memory, because you've got a much more vivid mental image from a memory than something you make up."

James shut his eyes and concentrated, and, lifting his wand, shouted, "_Expecto Patronem!_"

Another stag erupted out of his wand, and trotted over to join the first one, which had nearly faded away.  Harry concentrated on his happy memory, with his wand pointed to it, and it strengthened immediately.

The second stag was slightly different from Harry's.  Apart from the forehead markings and eye colour, its antlers were taller, and more ostentatiously curved; and its tail was longer.  It was holding itself differently too; more upright and proudly that the Harry's.  As they reached each other, they bowed, until their antlers were just touching.  Harry and James looked at each other, and they faded away.

James was still looking annoyed over having just done three years of hard work only to find that he didn't need to have done it, when Ron interrupted.  "So that means that we can all become animagi too!"

Harry looked up, and nodded.  "Probably.  Come on, let's find out what animal you both are."

Ron and Hermione both lifted their wands, and concentrated; Ron had his head resting on his arm and his eyebrows creased, and Hermione had shut her eyes, a look of calm appearing on her face.  Hermione went first.  "_Expecto Patronem!"_

A shining stream of silver flew out, which quickly formed itself into an otter, with thick, wavy fur, grey-brown on the outside but with a creme-coloured belly, a short, black snout, and large, brown eyes visible beneath the silver glow.  It gambolled around her, staring up at her.  Hermione's eyes shined with delight, but James frowned.  "Don't they live in the sea?"

"Mostly, yes," Hermione answered.

"That's going to be a bit of a problem for getting around the grounds, then, isn't it?"

Hermione nodded reluctantly.  "I see what you mean.  My Patronus is just gliding on the floor, but a real otter won't be able to do that."  She looked up, her Patronus starting to fade away.  "I'll still be able to go in the lake, though."

James nodded thoughtfully, but Harry looked up at Ron.  "Let's see yours, then?"

"I can't seem to find a happy enough memory," he said, looking up.

"I'd have thought you'd had loads of happy memories, living with your family."

Ron looked annoyed.  "That's the problem.  There's so many happy memories, happiness was the norm.  I can't find a _really_ happy memory to contrast it with.  You see what I mean?"

Harry did.  The fact that he hadn't had any truly happy memories before coming to Hogwarts meant that when some really happy ones came along, like what he found out that he was going to Hogwarts, they made such a contrast that concentrating on them was easy.  He looked at Ron.  "Try it anyway, see if we can see what animal you are."

Ron nodded, creased his forehead, shouted, "_Expecto Patronem!_", and was rewarded with a cloud of silver vapour, which hung in front of Ron, but with not nearly enough shape to identify what animal it was.  Ron looked very disappointed, and the silver mist faded quickly.

"Don't worry about it, I'm sure that you'll learn to do it properly, given practice," Hermione assured Ron.  He didn't look happy about it, but nodded his head.

"OK then.  James, can you remember the ingredients of the potion?" Harry asked.

"Not really – well, some of them, but it's very complex to brew, and I'll probably get it wrong.  There's a book in the library that tells you how, though – shall I put on the cloak and get it?"

Harry started to nod, but Hermione interrupted decisively.  "It's our first day of school tomorrow, you should all be getting some rest – it's nearly eleven o'clock!"  Ron opened his mouth to argue, but Hermione threw him such a sharp look that he closed it again.  "Well, goodnight," she said, and walked out of the door, heading over to the girls dormitories.

James raised his eyebrows, but Harry was getting out his timetable.  "Let's see, what have we got tomorrow...  History of Magic, double Potions, Divination and double Defence Against the Dark Arts."  He groaned.  "Apart from defence, that's the worst Monday we've ever had."

"What d'you think Snape's going to be like in Potions?" James said.

Harry grimaced.  "I don't want to think about it.  Oh well, at least we can look forward to Sirius coming – Dumbledore said he'd be here tomorrow, didn't he."

James nodded, and started levitating his books and equipment, which were lying around the room having been returned to their normal size, down under his bed.  He yawned, and climbed into his bed, still in Harry's old T-shirt and jeans.

"Good night."

"Night."

They were asleep by the time Seamus, Dean and Neville walked in, yawning.


	8. 

They chose chairs near the back of the classroom in their first lesson of the day, History of Magic.  Professor Binns was already in there, floating behind his desk with a blank expression.  When everyone had come in, he immediately started lecturing them on the history of the International Statute of Secrecy, without even collecting in their holiday homework, which Hermione looked distinctly annoyed about.  Harry glanced sideways at James, who wasn't even keeping up the pretence of taking notes, preferring instead to use the period as a method of catching up on some sleep and not even noticing the cross looks from Hermione that this earned him.  Near the end of the lesson, however, he stayed awake, looking more and more apprehensive at the thought of Snape teaching him.  He even snapped at Hermione when she started admonishing him for not taking notes ("What's the point, it's all in our text book anyway").  When the lesson finally ended, he packed up his books, and followed Harry out of the classroom in silence.

Snape was not in the classroom when they entered it, and they sat at the back, James sitting between Harry and Hermione.  They only had to wait a few moments, though, as Snape swept in a few moments later.  He did not need to call for quiet, which had fallen as soon as the class had heard the door closed.  Harry looked apprehensively at James, expecting Snape to start finding excuses to take points off immediately, but strangely enough, Snape started with a reminder that their OWLs will be in June, and that he would only take the very best into his NEWT class.  His gaze swept around the classroom, lingering on Neville.  He avoided looking over in Harry and James's direction at all.

He set them to work mixing up the Draught of Peace.  It was a complicated potion, but Harry could not direct his full attention to it; he was concentrating on Snape, who seemed to be avoiding them.  Was he planning something?  What was he going to do?

He glanced down at his own potion, which was issuing copious amounts of grey steam.  Snape glimpsed it, and looked as though he was going to come over and criticise; but thought better of it.  He was staying at least ten foot away from them, Harry noticed, and had deliberately avoided looking at James the whole lesson, despite James looking like he was having nearly as much trouble with his potion as Harry was.  How long was this situation going to last?  Could Snape avoid them the whole year?  Harry hoped he could; compared to what he usually had to put up with in Snape's lessons, ignoring him was quite an improvement.

Ignoring them, however, didn't seem to make him avoid the other Gryffindors, and he spent most of the lesson tormenting Neville, expunging his potion every five minutes and forcing him to do it again until he got it right.  Indeed, he seemed to be getting into a progressively worse mood as the lesson wore on.  James glanced at Harry, but Harry didn't dare speak, in case they drew Snape's attention to them.  By the end of the lesson, Snape seemed so angry, and they both thought it safer to ask Hermione to take their potion samples and put them onto Snape's desk for marking, in the middle of a group of Slytherins' potions, so that Snape couldn't see whose was whose.  Snape looked incensed, but still resolutely refused to even look at them.  They filed out of the classroom in silence.

Once they were well on their way to the North Tower, Harry thought it safe to speak to James.  "That was so weird!  Usually he can't keep himself from using me as an excuse to take points of Gryffindor, but today it was like we didn't even exist to him."

James could only shrug, as they climbed up the ladder to the North Tower.  He looked around in amazement at the perfumed fire, red drapery, and the little purple pouffes and cushions arranged around the low tables.  "This is divination?  What kind of professor teaches like this?"

"You'll see soon," Ron whispered.  "She's a complete fraud.  Just make up loads of depressing predictions to keep her happy."

"Good day," said a misty, dreamy voice from behind them.  Professor Trelawney was laying out a stack of leather-bound books on the tables.  Harry, James and Ron chose a table as far away form the fire as possible, and looked at the books whilst waiting for everyone else to file in through the trapdoor.  They had the word '_The Dream Oracle_' in flowery handwriting on the spine, and sure enough, Professor Trelawney announced that the would be doing dream interpretation.  Harry paired up with James, leaving Ron with Neville.

"So, what did you dream about?" Harry asked James.

James was silent for a moment.  He seemed to be debating whether to answer.

"Lily," he said.

Harry was silent.  He knew he could not say anything to empathise with James – he had never felt what it would be like to wake up one day and be told that someone you were in love with has been does for fourteen years.

All he could do was to be there, as a silent reminder to James that he was their son.

James looked at him, and suddenly shook himself.  "I – I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said..."

"It's OK, Prongs.  It's OK."

James looked up in surprise at being addressed by the name which had only been used by the rest of the Marauder's before, but smiled.

After Divination, they met up with Hermione for lunch, and wandered over to the Defence against the Dark Arts corridor half an hour early.  James walked into their classroom.  He seemed to be reminiscing.

"I had Defence in here in my third year, when we changed teachers.  We did this amazing prank on the new professor.  Remus thought it up."

"Go on," Ron encouraged.

"When the classroom was empty, we drew a _visum_ line between his desk and the students desks, and Remus did an _obfirmo_ charm on it to lock the view into place from the teacher's side, and put a one-way silencing charm on it.  So when the teacher came in all he could see was what was visible when we drew the line, a load of empty desks.  So he just sat at his desk and started marking, waiting for everyone to turn up.  It took him half the lesson to realise that everyone was already here.  It was hilarious."

There was a strange glint in Harry's eye.  "Do you think Remus will remember it?"

James caught on.  "Only one way to find out."  He grinned, but Hermione frowned.

"You can't do that to a professor."

"Why not?" James asked.

"Because... it's not right.  We'd get into trouble."

James looked annoyed.  "You've got no sense of humour.  I bet you've never broken a rule in your life."

Ron interrupted, looking indignant.  "She's probably broken more rules than you ever did."

"Oh yeah?  For instance?"

"When did you first use Polyjuice potion to spy on the Slytherins?  We did it in the second year.  That was Hermione's idea."

"We never needed to, we were clever enough to spy on them in other ways," James shot back.

Ron looked smug.  "When did you first discover a secret chamber underneath the school?  Hermione worked that out, too."

"We discovered loads of secret passageways."

"QED."

James looked very annoyed, but suddenly smirked, and addressed Hermione.  "So you'll have no problem with pulling pranks on teachers, then."

There was a moment of silence, and then everyone burst out laughing.  "I'll take that as a 'no', then!" James called over the laughter.

He set about tracing the line with his wand, curving at round when he got near the door, and muttered a few charms when he'd finished.  "There, perfect.  Just how Remus did it.  We'll be able to see him, but he won't be able to see us."

They didn't have long to wait, as the rest of their class started filing in bit by bit, oblivious to the _visum_ line.  When all the students were sitting down, Harry saw Professor Lupin come in, glance at the 'empty' classroom with raised eyebrows, shrug, and sit down at his desk.  The rest of their class, who had been taught by him two years earlier, looked surprised that he didn't acknowledge them, but none of them seemed to want to go up and ask him why.  This was the first class that he had taught them where they knew he was a werewolf.

"Great way to get out of learning anything, isn't it?" James whispered to Harry, so that the rest of the class wouldn't hear.  "Pity it only works once."

After about five minutes, Professor Lupin looked up again, frowning. "He's starting to worry why no-one's here," James whispered.  The professor got up to his desk, walked over to the door, and looked outside.  He turned back, and started walking to the fireplace at the back of the classroom, crossing the line as he did.

The moment he'd crossed the line, he stopped.  Surprisingly, his face was expressionless as he looked around the classroom, until his gaze alighted on James, and a very slight smile alighted upon his features, all but invisible if you were not watching for it.

He pointed his wand at the general direction of the line, muttered a few words under his breath, walked back to the front of the classroom, and addressed the now rather puzzled students.

"I apologise for that.  I will be teaching you Defence Against the Dark Arts again this year, and as you all know, I am a werewolf.  Since some of you may be concerned about this, I have decided to start this year by giving you a few lessons about them, to remedy the rather... biased teaching I understand you received at one point last year, under Professor Snape.

"Now, who can tell me what a werewolf is?"

Harry and James didn't answer any of Professor Lupin's questions, preferring to leave them to the other students.  Suprisingly, Hermione also didn't, but that was mainly because she was taking such comprehensive notes that they may as well have been a transcript of the lesson.

They lingered behind after the lesson, and sure enough, Professor Lupin walked in front of the door before they could walk out.  He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Harry, James and Ron burst out laughing.  Hermione allowed a slight smile to creep onto her features.

"You can't even recognise your own prank, Moony!" James said through the laughter.  "That was the first one you thought up.  You're losing your touch!"

Remus looked resigned.  "OK, OK, I get the picture.  But don't try anything like that again, OK?"

Harry straightened up, looking innocently up at Professor Lupin.  "Us?  Why would we ever do anything like that?"

Remus suddenly grinned, and turned to James.  "You're corrupting them, James!  We're going to have the neo-marauders around here before long!"

"What makes you think that wasn't the idea?" James shot back, smirking.  Remus rolled his eyes, and walked out without another word.

They looked at each other.  Harry cleared his throat.  "Why don't we get the ingredients of the animagus potion?  If it takes two weeks to brew..."  He trailed off.  The others nodded.  "To the library, then!"

They passed the staff room on the way down.  James glanced at Harry.  "If Dumbledore knows about the mirror, it's not going to be much use, is it?"

Harry nodded, and after checking that it was empty, darted in, took off the charms and retrieved the mirror.  He shrunk it, put it into his pocket, and hurried off after Ron and Hermione.

Once in the library, James found the book almost immediately; to Harry's surprise, it wasn't in the restricted section.  He asked James about it.

"We do animagi in the third year, so it's available to anyone to study," he answered.

They chose a table near the back, and opened the book, flicking through until they got to the potion, which was near the back.  Hermione studied it carefully.

"The only thing in here that's not in the students' cupboards is a boomslang pod, but they've got a jar of those on the shelf behind Snape's desk in our classroom.  I saw it last time we were there.  Should we get it now?  He'll be in his quarters for most of the time.  It'd be easy just to go down there now and whilst we're getting the rest of the ingredients out of the students' cupboards, levitate a couple down when he's not in there.  I'd like to start the potion as soon as possible."

Harry shrugged, and nodded his head.  They checked the book out of the library, and trooped off down to the dungeons, Hermione telling James about Myrtle's bathroom, where they'd brewed the Polyjuice potion.  James was just agreeing that this would be the best place to make this one as they entered the dungeons.

Unfortunately, it was not empty. Malfoy was in there, reading something on Snape's desk.  As the four walked in, he looked up, and leered at them.  

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the new kid," he smirked.  He turned to Harry.  "I think you were better off when you had no family, don't you, Potter?  Thank God your parents snuffed it before they had a chance to make any more..."

He didn't get any further.  There was a bright flash, and he found himself pinned half way up the front wall of the dungeon, above the door.  James had his wand pointing straight at his throat.

Harry had stepped back.  He silently berated himself: he should have told James to just ignore Malfoy.  He had gotten used to Malfoy's snide comments, but James hadn't.  But even as he looked on, he realised that this would not have made any difference.  James had a look in his eyes that Harry had never seen before.

Malfoy snarled, and tried to reach for his wand on the ground, only succeeding in tipping himself upside-down, so that his robes fell over his head.  He struggled, but could not get out of this position, settling instead for shouting though his robes.

"How dare you... When my father finds out about this..."

James looked enraged; he flicked his wand again and muttered, "_Petrificus Totalus!_" and Snape's mouth slammed shut, his arms and legs snapping to his side.  This succeeded only in making his robes fall down even further, revealing his underpants.

Hermione frowned in disgust at this, and looked at James.  "You'd better let him down now," she muttered, looking worried.

"Let him down?  After what he said to Harry?  You're bloody joking."

"I'm serious – you could get into really big trouble for this – he says that sort of thing all the time, you've just got to ignore him..."

"Hermione, don't make me hex you too!"

"Let him down, then!"  Hermione saw that James wasn't going to, and tried a different tactic.  "He's not worth it, James, really he's not.  He's – he's just Slytherin trash, they're not worth the effort."

This reasoning at last seemed to get through to James.  He reluctantly muttered the counter-curse, and Malfoy fell to the ground with a loud thump, upside-down and crumpled in a heap.  James shot a dirty look at him.  "We haven't finished this, _Malfoy_.  You're just lucky Hermione was here this time..."

Then, two things happened at once.  The dungeon door opened silently behind Malfoy to reveal Snape, holding his wand.  Harry and James went white.  Malfoy appeared not to have noticed, however; his eyes were still shooting daggers at James, as he replied to James's last comment. "I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!"

There was a long silence.  Snape still seemed to be taking in the situation; Malfoy upside-down in a heap at his feet and his last remark to James, and James himself still holding his wand at Malfoy, as though frozen by Snape when he had walked into the room.  There was a funny look in Snape's eyes, as though this was a nightmare that he had been having that he had just been played out in reality.  Slowly, however, as they focused on James with an intensity Harry had not thought possible, appeared a look that Harry had seen all too often; only this time it was worse, a thousand times worse.  It was pure, undiluted hatred.

"Come with me, Potter."


End file.
